Critical Dimensions of African Studies emphasizes a critique of power structures, the promotion of human liberation, a commitment to social justice and transformation, and critical reflection on the politics of the production and circulation of knowledge of Africa.

This book brings together top researchers, thinkers, and activists from across disciplines to reflect on the study of Africa. Critical Dimensions of African Studies: Re-Membering Africa emphasizes a critique of power structures, the promotion of human liberation, a commitment to social justice and transformation, and critical reflection on the politics of the production and circulation of knowledge of Africa. The editors, Jennifer De Maio, Suzanne Scheld, and Tom Spencer-Walters, organize the book around three related key themes: international/transnational, humanistic, and combined critical theory and practice perspectives. They argue that each theme represents an important dimension of contemporary African and African diaspora studies and re-centering these themes within the discipline will help to advance the field. The diverse contributors capture the goal and method for re-membering Africa by reflecting and defining the field from various disciplines in order to consider the history, the critical debates, and the challenges to current views of the status and future direction of African studies.

Acknowledgments

Introduction by Jennifer De Maio, Suzanne Scheld, and Tom Spencer-Walters

Part I: Language and the International/Transnational Lens

Chapter 1: Tom Spencer-Walters: Intellectual Freedom Fighter by Selase W. Williams

Chapter 2: Terms Matter: The Use of “Tribe” in African Studies by Jennifer L. De Maio and Daniel N. Posner

Chapter 3: Speaking Africa: Re-Membering Africa through Language, Culture, and Aesthetics by Sheba Lo

Chapter 4: “Africa for the Africans” Garvey & African Transnationality: The Idea of Flexible Citizenship by W. Gabriel Selassie I

Chapter 5: “Back Home This Never Would Have Happened”: Imagining Tradition and Modernity Among Ugandan Pentecostals in Los Angeles by Kevin Zemlicka

Part II: Humanistic Approach

Chapter 6: Bumuntu Humanism and “Values Discourse”: Reflection on the Importance of African Studies in Our Tumultuous Time by Mutombo Nkulu-N’Sengha

Chapter 7: “Working the Past:” Memory, Language, and Echoes of Slavery in Ama Ata Aidoo’s The Dilemma of a Ghost and Anowa by Raquel Kennon

Chapter 8: The Power of Memory and Language: Counter-Stories as Oppositional Remembering by Renee M. Moreno

Chapter 9: Marché Sandaga: The Language of the Built Environment in Remembering and Re-Membering by Suzanne Scheld

Part III: Critical Theory and Practice

Chapter 10: Africa’s Adult Literacy Landscape in The Age of Globalization: A Path to Increased Access and Change by Daphne W. Ntiri

Chapter 11: Remembering Africa: Memory and The Narrative Imagination in the Polio Survivor’s Experience by Rodney B. Hume-Dawson

Chapter 12: Reconciling Traditional and Nontraditional Approach to Mental Health Services: African Diaspora Experience by Senait Admassu, Kofi Peprah, and Edwin Aimufua

Part IV: Conclusion

Afterword by Tom Spencer-Walters

About the Contributors